RE: hi all , I am new and want to kick start BLE Beacon. What devices i need to purchase ?

Edvin — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 17:49:42 GMT

Hello Arun,

Well, since you are asking in a Nordic Semiconductor Forum, I assume you are looking into the Nordic products. To start development, you have two options. You can either use the nRF Beacon Kit, which is quite small and fancy, and it can do anything a beacon needs it to do. It is equipped with an nRF51822.

Personally, I would go for the nRF51 DK or the nRF52 DK, if you want to do development. The reason for this is because the beacon kit does not have a programming chip, so you will either have to use an external programmer (Segger J-Link), or use an nRF5[1/2] DK to program the beacon, either by using a 6-pin Needle Adapter, or by soldering on some wires which you can connect to the DK.

So it is much easier to program the DK, and even though it has more buttons, LEDs, and pins, you can still program it with the beacon example, so it will act as a beacon.

In fact, I would advice you to purchase two DKs. Although it sounds like I am saying this to sell more, it is actually very helpful during development, because you can use one DK with nRF Connect for desktop (we do have a smartphone app for this as well, but the desktop version has more features), and you can use it together with the nRF Sniffer to sniff the packets that are being sent over the air.

I hope this was of some help. I hope that some other people in the DevZone Community could also share their opinion and experience, either if they agree with me or not.

Best regards,

Edvin